Hue and Cry

by Shirley McKay

  Hew nodded gently. ‘Please. I’ll ask the college servant for some wine.’

  The Lye

  ‘Tell me about the letters.’

  Robert was caught by surprise. Hew had sent out to the cook-shop for pottage and pie, and with a little bread and wine they made their dinner on a board beside the window, talking of desultory things in the afternoon light. The drizzle fell softly. The clouds were beginning to clear. Aristotle’s De Caelo lay open before them, and as they touched upon the motions of the meteors and the spheres his fears had begun to recede. In a dull voice he answered, cupping his hands round the broth as though to draw strength from the warmth of the bowl.

  ‘I found them in the chest.’ Robert paused to look at Hew, who did not comment, then went on. ‘I was looking for … I found … I did not read them all, but there were letters and poems from the boy. I gave then to the coroner the day that the dyer was killed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They were evidence.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of unnaturalness between them. They were letters of affection. And the poems … were of a nature most corrupt and intimate.’

  ‘Unnatural and filthie converse.’ Hew spoke almost to himself, as if reciting from a script.

  ‘Well … I believed so,’ Robert confessed. ‘Indeed they could be read that way. In the mind of the boy … I have the sense that he felt overwhelmed. I don’t say Nicholas encouraged it. I truly think he did not know, until he had the letters, how Alexander felt. But they were many hours together, quite alone. I think the boy felt homesick and friendless. It was natural perhaps he should be drawn to Nicholas, who was always the most patient of teachers. But from the letters it would seem that there was more than that. The boy seemed increasingly anxious and bold. My sense is that he struggled with his feelings until he found he must express them. He felt very deeply, it seems.’

  ‘And do you think the feelings were returned?’

  There was a long pause before Robert replied. ‘I have asked myself the question many times, and yet I have not found the answer. That Nicholas might hold him in affection, yes; perhaps even love. It is harder to imagine carnal lust. For if he has a fault it lies in his detachment, almost as if he does not feel the frailties of the flesh. He goes for days without eating or sleeping, sometimes without drinking; he seems indifferent to sickness or cold.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that he may use these deprivations as a way of self-control?’ suggested Hew. ‘Excuse me if I play the devil’s advocate. Go on. You found the letters, and were shocked to learn their content. I allow they suggest an unnatural bond with the boy. But what gave you to think they had a part to play in Alexander’s death? Was there blackmail implied?’

  ‘Not that I saw. In a way it was clearer than that, for they were speckled with blood, and wrapped in a blood-crusted gown. I last saw Nicholas wearing that gown the day before the boy died, when he left here to give him his lesson. He had not worn it since. I remarked particularly that he did not have it on in church on Sunday evening. It was a cool night, and he was already ill. And as I said before, he seemed on the edge of his wits. I believe that he had read the letters and the poems, or else the boy confessed his feelings. Perhaps Nicholas repulsed him, and there was a fight. Perhaps even,’ Robert brightened slightly, ‘the boy came at him with his pocket knife, inflicting the wound he sustained in the thigh, and Nicholas took up the shuttle to defend himself, but hit out too hard. Might that be it, do you think? Could it be self-defence?’

  Hew did not reply.

  ‘In any case,’ Robert went on miserably, ‘he suffered so deeply from guilt and remorse it drove him further to the brink of madness when he learned the wrong man was to be hanged for his crime. I spoke with him before he left the college, on the day that he took ill. He was determined to speak to Tom Begbie, though he would not say why.’

  ‘You think that was remorse?’ Hew asked uneasily.

  ‘Aye, what else then?’ Robert looked surprised. ‘When I found the letters and the provost told me Nicholas had died, I realised he had meant to make confession, and I set the letters out before the court. But,’ he dropped his head to his hands, ‘it has all gone awry, because Nicholas still lives, and the coroner has put him to the horn and holds him in the Auld College to be charged with the foulest and filthiest of crimes.’

  ‘And Tom was freed?’ Hew concluded.

  ‘He already was free. A young lass from the country came to speak for him. She claimed he’d been with her all night.’

  They sat together awhile without words, Hew going through in his mind what Robert had told him, turning it over, looking for flaws, swilling and sipping the wine. The dregs in his stomach ran cold. Eventually he spoke. ‘You give a motive for the murder of the boy, but what about the dyer? Why should he kill him, and why did he go there that day? It makes no sense.’

  Robert sighed. ‘The coroner suggested that the dyer knew about his closeness to the boy. It was like him, he was always prying. Dyer was an elder of the kirk, and he pursued his offices most fiercely. He was well known to the college, for he often made complaint about the students’ conduct. Nothing pleased him more than punishing transgression, or sniffing out some secret shame or lewd and filthie crime.’

  A man like that would have to have had enemies,’ observed Hew.

  ‘No doubt. It hardly matters, for the fact is that Nicholas was in both places and as good as caught red-hand. Do you think the crown will trouble to investigate? They do not know, or care, how Nicholas could kill the dyer when he was all but dead himself. What matters is that he was there, he did it, there’s an end to it. And I gave them the proof,’ Robert ended wretchedly.

  Hew was uncertain how to proceed. ‘I confess, it looks bad,’ he acknowledged. ‘But there may be something else that we have not considered. A feud between the Dyers and the Strachans, or someone with a grudge against the gilds. As long as Nicholas has not confessed, there must be hope. I’ll go looking at the dyer’s house this very afternoon.’

  For the dyer, he believed an answer might be found. But did it matter after all? The evidence about the boy had chilled him to the bone.

  The road to the dyer’s house was quiet. Few people seemed to pass this way. Hew left his horse at the west port stables and walked the muddy path along the Kinness Burn. At length he saw a smoking cottage chimney, then a little house set back within a ragged garden overgrown with weeds, a row of sodden sheepskins curling by the door. A small sallow girl sat among them combing out the fleece. In a wooden box beside her someone squalled.

  Jennie Dyer was bored. The little ones grubbed round her in the dirt and burrowed like insects, fractious and squabbling, spoiling the wool while the youngest one bawled. She felt like bawling herself. She had wanted to go to the town to the market today, but Will had said no, she must stay at home with the weans, for her mother was sick. She stuck out her lip in disgust. They hardly needed minding now that Nan was almost eight, and big enough to stop the weans from falling in the burn, or big enough at least to fetch the boys to hoik them out. It was worse than when her father was alive, for the boys had to do what he told them; he’d never favour Will or Jem and she was his pet: ‘Och, Janet, let the lass have her bit play!’ And there might be sucket candie then. And when he was cross – which was often – she would drop her lip low and call up the tears, soundlessly and soft, not letting them fall. And he’d pull her down onto his knees, reeling her in like a slippery fish and spin her and tickle her roughly, kissing the curls of her hair. Only he had understood how wrong it was for her to live among the stink of dyes, to go into the town to be sneered at by the country folk. When she was grown she meant to be a lady, and live in a grand house on the south street with braw painted ceilings and embroidered pictures on the walls, everything smelling of flowers.

  There would, of course, be a price, but she knew how to pay it. She would have to pay it anyway. For her mother lived here in this stew and worked hard all her days
and still she paid the price; now she was with child again. They took her for a fool if they thought she did not know. She remembered all too well the last time when the baby came, and father had said words that even Will was shocked to hear, godly as he was. And then he had wept and prayed and prayed and wept to God and had them crying, praying half the night while Mother almost died. ‘Why did they not learn?’ she heard Jem whisper tearfully to Will, and Will had said when Father died, ‘At least this one’s the last.’

  There was a stranger coming. She pulled the baby to her hip in a gesture of protection, but the baby struggled crossly and continued to bawl.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ Hew asked her mildly.

  ‘Don’t know. Perhaps it wants a penny for candie.’ She was ever hopeful.

  ‘It looks a bit little for candie. Has it any teeth?’

  ‘Three. And it likes to suck on comfits. Piece of rag soaked in honey, it likes that. So do Geordie and Susan and Nan.’ Three small faces turned towards him.

  ‘And my name is Jennie. And it isn’t an it, it’s a girl. Name of Bess. It likely wants its mother. She has,’ she searched to find the word, ‘she has the lying-in. She’s very sick of it.’

  ‘I expect she is.’ Hew squatted down on the grass and gingerly tickled the baby. ‘Hallo, little Bess. There may be a penny for you when I’ve finished my business with your father.’ In an instant the other children dropped their game and crowded expectantly round him.

  Jennie played her best card: ‘Faither’s deid.’ The trembling of the lip was only partly feigned. ‘We put him in the ground not two days since. He fell into the dye pot and was boiled.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry to hear it. I’ll leave something for your mother then.’ She could have howled her disappointment. ‘And for Bess,’ he gave a solemn wink, ‘we’ll have to see. Who does the dyeing now? For I see there’s fleeces still laid out.’

  ‘My brothers. James is at the burn, but Will’s out the back with the pots.’ She gestured to the house. ‘You can go through there if you like, or round by the side. And if you wanted to make water,’ she suddenly brightened, ‘we’ll all turn our backs for a penny. Else the little ones say things and stare.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind if I’m ever caught short.’

  Hew went by the side, turning his face from the barrel of lye which caught at his breath, scalding his throat as he passed. His eyes watered still as he came to the green at the back of the house.

  ‘Good day to you, sir.’ Will Dyer stepped aside from the pot and looked at Hew suspiciously. He held a crumbled block of purple litmus in his hands. Since his father’s death he had found himself wary of strangers, though this one wheezed and spluttered too conspicuously to pose a serious threat. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Hew had recovered his breath. He fingered strands of wool in variegated shades of violet drying on their frames. ‘What extraordinary depth of colour! Will it last?’

  ‘It’s likely to fade a bit,’ Will admitted. ‘But it’s a foreign dyestuff I’m improving, litmus mixed with woad and cochineal. We’re working on the set. It’s the mordant makes you splutter. It catches in the throat. Was it purples you were wanting?’

  ‘Saffron. I’ve a dozen old shirts I’d like to have dipped. I’ve just returned home from abroad, and I find the French fashions too fine for my current employment. My name is Hew Cullan. I’m about to start as regent in the college of St Leonard, but the townsfolk seem to take me for some foreign merchant and charge me to fit. I find I can’t afford to keep the colour of my cloth.’

  Will laughed. ‘We’re a bit behind on the leines. I’ve been busy with this. But I’ll have a pot of saffron ready by the middle of next week if you would like to bring them then. How long were you in France, sir? I’d like to go myself to see the dyes. There’s merchants come to market but you cannot trust their wares.’

  ‘Five or six years, more or less. They’ve very fine silks. Ice greens and blues. There’s a salmon-pink shot watered silk in fashion with the gentry now. I’ve seen nothing like it here.’

  ‘Indeed? I don’t suppose you know how they make it?’

  ‘I fear not. But I never saw purples as vibrant as this.’

  ‘Think you not?’ Will was pleased. ‘It doesn’t go well in the town. It’s no Alexander Blue.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s a sick enough jest, Master Cullan, forgive me. The wound’s a bit raw. You may know my father was recently drowned in a vat of dark purple; it wasn’t this one, but more of a puce. We won’t make it again. But folk prefer the blue.’ He waved at the pot. ‘It’s named for a poor murdered lad who died in a shop in the town. His body was wrapped in some cloth of a similar shade. Since then we cannot make enough of it, for dresses, drapes and shawls.’

  ‘How singular. But my condolences for your loss. The little lass told me her father had drowned.’

  ‘She thinks it was an accident.’ Will looked at him shrewdly. ‘But if you’re from the college you’ll have heard of the charge against Master Colp.’

  ‘Forgive me, I had heard that he was indicted for murder, but I didn’t know of the connection or I might never have come. I hope it doesn’t cause offence? Please accept our deep regret and sadness for your loss.’

  ‘I thank you, but there’s no offence. I’ll gladly dye your shirts. And in truth, I do not believe that Colp did it. In fact I’m sure he did not.’

  ‘Truly? I thought they had caught him red-hand?’

  ‘Quite the reverse. It was I who found him. Colp was lying sick and insensible by the front step. I thought he was dead. He could not have finished a mouse in a trap, the state he was in.’

  ‘They say that madmen have great strength,’ suggested Hew, ‘even in adversity. Supposing he was mad?’

  ‘Even allowing for that, he still could not have done it. I don’t believe he even saw my father.’ Will held out his hands. They were crusted with lichen and livid with dye. ‘Call this red-hand, if you will. My father was struck on the back of the head, and then tipped, while he lived, into the great pot of dye. The grass is still spattered with purple. The killer must be marked on his hands and his clothes. Look at these nails, sir. It never comes off. But when I turned over Nicholas Colp, I found not a mark or a spot.’

  Hew returned through the house in search of the children, reflecting on what Will had said. He found them still outside, building walls of mud and stone to make a babies’ castle in the yard. Stooping to admire it, he felt into his pockets for a pile of shiny pennies which he laid out on the ramparts one by one. ‘There’s a penny for you all, and there’ll be sixpence for your sister who looks after you. It’s Jennie, is it not? You’re a good girl to mind them, and the littlest so fretful. You might fetch her some milk. It will be better for her teeth than sucket candie don’t you think? But I expect you’d like some ribbons or a gingerbread horse from the fair?’

  She nodded and solemnly stretched out her hand. He held back a moment. ‘There’s a thing I would like you to help me with. Do you always play here?’

  ‘Aye, or down by the burn.’

  ‘Can you remember, Jennie, if you played here on the day your father died? Did anyone come by the house?’

  She shook her head. ‘We were down at the stream with Mother, all of us, helping. Except for the boys. They’d gone into town to do work for the weaver. Only Father was here. That’s why no one came to help him when he fell. There was no one but the man.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘The one that was ill. Will said he must have come after. He found him close to where you’re standing, by the door. But I never saw him come. You can’t see to the house, where we were.’

  ‘And no one passed by on the road?’

  ‘I think I saw a lass, coming up from the fields to the town. She didn’t want us. She’s not from the kirk, so I don’t know her name. But maybe it wasn’t that day.’

  She thought she might tell him the truth, but of course she could not
. For there had been a man, a fine one at that, dressed in a long dark-green cloak, like the pelt of a mole and muffling his face, and gloves and a matching green hat.

  She had left her mother and the bairns at the burn and come back to the house to make use of the pot. For so they were always supposed to, every last drop to be saved for the lye. She had hung on as always as long as she could, hoping to cheat necessity, knowing always that necessity would beat her in the end. But as she ran clutching her skirts towards the house and its familiar smells, something inside her gave way. She had lifted her dress as high as her head and crouching down by the wall in the lavender bed, had voided her stream wet and warm into the spiky sweetness of the earth. Instead of the stoor and the stench she smelled flowers. She was free. Then she had heard a discreet little cough, a snort of laughter right behind her. And pulling down her skirts in her confusion, dabbing at the dampness that appeared to spot her dress, she had seen him smiling at her, stroking the hairs of a darkened-red beard.

  ‘A thousand pardons, little lass. It seems you and I had similar intentions, though I’d thought to use your father’s barrel in a more conventional mode. But perhaps there’s no one home, that you disport yourself in front of it?’

  She whispered, blushing, ‘Father’s out the back; there’s no one in the house.’

  ‘Indeed? Well unlike you I prefer to be private. It’s a place I’m ashamed to be seen. Here’s a shilling. If you run off now as fast as you can and let me loosen off in peace, child, and don’t tell your friends and family I came by, I’ll make up your father’s losses in the bucket and I won’t tell your mother I saw you bare-arsed.’

  He laughed aloud as she fled, not even peeping backwards through the trees to watch him fetch his thing out by the pot. She had the shilling still, sewn in a little pocket in her dress, close and warming next to her heart.

  Hew was looking at her. ‘And the little ones saw nothing? No? I thank you. Here’s sixpence for the lye.’